Advertisement

Chief engineer Pat Fry leaves McLaren after 17 years

May 14, 2010 at 2:20 pm By Jacob Alexander Filed Under Formula 1, McLaren, Motorsports

Pat Fry, chief engineer at McLaren, has left the Woking based F1 team after 17 years. He was the lead designer of last year’s MP4-24 race car and is in charge of the 2011 MP4-26 challenger. According to team principal Martin Whitmarsh Fry will be replaced by someone “younger” and “hungrier”.

Fry started his career with Benetton in 1987 and worked as a race engineer and test team engineer till 1992 before a move to McLaren in 1993. At Mclaren, he moved to engineering in 1995 and was instated as the chief engineer alongside Tim Goss in 2002. Both alternate as lead designers – Goss is in charge of this year’s car, which has powered championship leader Jenson Button to two race wins so far this season.

“I think it was probably good for him, the right decision for him to take a bit of a break, take a breather. I think he’s worked very hard for the team for a number of years. Within our team, then, I think we’ve got quite a bit of a talent and depth, so in these situations it’s a great opportunity for someone younger, maybe hungrier, to come along and replace all of us,” Whitmarsh was quoted as saying.

9 Comments    

No racing future for McLaren MP4-12C?

March 22, 2010 at 9:40 am By Danny Tan Filed Under Cars, McLaren, Motorsports

Looks every bit the race car, doesn’t it? But McLaren boss Ron Dennis has ruled out the company fielding a factory team to race its new MP4-12C supercar, according to Autosport.

“We don’t have plans to race it, but we do recognise that some of our customers will want to race this car,” Dennis said. “At the appropriate time we will form a department to service that – but thoughts on a factory team entering any series are premature.”

Wouldn’t it be good to see McLaren’s finest wing-to-wing with the likes of Maserati’s MC12 and the Ford GT in the FIA GT1 championship, or even a try at Le Mans, where the McLaren F1 GTR won in 1995. For now, we’ll have to make do with some amazing renderings from talented digital artist Jon Sibal. Here, Sibal created a “GTR variant” of the MP4-12C in colours that pay homage to the original F1 GTR liveries.

Check them out after the jump!

Source
[Read more...]

14 Comments    


McLaren MP4-12C gets approval from F1 champs

March 19, 2010 at 2:55 pm By Danny Tan Filed Under Cars, Formula 1, McLaren

The Honda NSX is a legend, and owners can always boast that another legend, Formula 1 great Ayrton Senna, had a hand in the mid-engined sportscar’s development. Now, future owners of the McLaren MP4-12C can claim that their 600 bhp supercar is endorsed by not one, but two Formula 1 champs! Well, almost. With the two most recent F1 champions racing under its name, McLaren couldn’t resist letting Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton have a go at the “XP Beta phase” prototypes of the MP4-12C, although testing road cars isn’t part of their official job scope.

The two British champs tried out XP8 and XP10 at Goodwood Motor Circuit earlier this month. Being self confessed ‘petrolheads’ and having seen the 12C at the McLaren Technology Centre in February, they were keen to get behind the wheel and share some views. Their time on the tight and fast circuit in southern England returned feedback on the 12C’s launch control, Brake-Steer application and threshold levels of the electronic stability control programmes, as well as driver comfort at speed.

Good comments are expected from the two well-paid employees, but we believe that the MP4-12C is truly a cracking car to drive coming from the people who brought us the McLaren F1. Read what Jenson and Lewis have to say after the jump. Images and video of the MP4-12C are available here.
[Read more...]

15 Comments    

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh says Bahrain was boring, calls for rule tweaks

March 15, 2010 at 3:22 pm By Danny Tan Filed Under Formula 1, McLaren

How many of you thought that yesterday’s Formula 1 season opener was boring? I did. Although Bahrain was a much anticipated event, and it’s always fascinating to see new teams, new faces and old faces in new colours, there wasn’t much real racing action to speak of. The FIA comes up with new rules every year which are supposed to make F1 more exciting, but the opposite effect always happens. For instance, the 2010 ban on refuelling took some action out of pit stops and created a track full of heavy cars.

Talking to BBC, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that Formula 1 needs to consider immediate rules tweaks to make it more spectacle than processional. “Today was not the best show, we know that and we have all got to work together to improve it.

“I personally believe that more challenging tyres will help the spectacle of the show. I also personally believe that we should have two stops mandated because we want to stop this. Today, if we had had a safety car on lap five, we’d have all piled in (to the pits) and we’d have all gone on the prime tyre and run to lap 49 without a stop. That was a real danger.

“I think that the tyres are allowing you to do that, I’m not trying to pass the blame (on to Bridgestone). We are all in this together. We do need to look at mandatings stops, we do need to look at the tyres and make them more fragile, and we do need to work on making the cars capable of racing close together and easier to overtake,” he said.

The lack of overtaking is an issue, and the Brit has this to say: “Unfortunately the double diffuser, and we have all got them, has really worked against that in the last two years, we have got rid of it for next year but that is arguably a year too late. What can we do this year? It’s go to be work with Bridgestone and potentially mandating more stops in the race.”

What do you think of Formula 1 in its current form?

80 Comments    

Jay Leno rides in pre-production McLaren MP4-12C

December 22, 2009 at 11:31 am By Danny Tan Filed Under Cars, McLaren

US talk show host Jay Leno is one of the most well-known car nut celebrities around and his equally famous car collection includes rare cars ranging from a 1906 Baker electric car to the McLaren F1. He was across the Atlantic at McLaren’s Woking HQ recently and was allowed to ride in a pre-production unit of the McLaren MP4-12C (at Top Gear’s test track, he will appear on the show too), which is set to be one of the great supercars with 600bhp from the self-developed, mid mounted twin-turbo V8 engine pulling a chassis that counts carbon fibre as its main ingredient.

What’s his verdict? “All supercars should be like this,” was what he told The Sunday Times. Leno wrote about his taxi ride for the UK newspaper, which you can read after the jump. He sounds very impressed by the MP4-12C for someone who owns about every supercar in the market.

[Read more...]

15 Comments    

VIDEO: McLaren MP4-12C Development Process

November 13, 2009 at 11:14 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, McLaren, Videos

McLaren MP4-12C Testing in Bahrain

The McLaren MP4-12C is not in the showrooms yet but McLaren Automotive is already embarking on getting as many buyers as possible interested in the car. They’ve produced a video called “Inside McLaren: developing the MP4-12C” which tracks the MP4-12C’s development process.

The video introduces to the viewer the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) and the MP4-12C test programme (presented by McLaren Automotive Technical Director Dick Glover), footage of extreme test conditions (presented by Chief Test Driver Chris Goodwin), more footage of the development process by various senior engineers, and footage of the 12C development cars on road and track in England and Germany, and extreme hot weather testing in Bahrain.

Dick Glover managed the development process involving 50 Testing and Development engineers and a total of 8 development cars. The result – a car priced at between £125,000 and £175,000 powered by a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine making over 600 horses and 587Nm of torque. It’s exterior looks may not look that exciting but the specs definitely sounds very appealing!

Watch the video after the jump.
[Read more...]

16 Comments    

First shots of new McLaren MP4-12C

September 9, 2009 at 1:31 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, McLaren

McLaren MP4-12c

Its name definitely doesn’t roll off your tongue as well as its predecessor the “F1″, and at first glance its looks doesn’t really spark any excitement at least in this car enthusiast, but I can’t wait to find out what this baby can do – apparently a 0 to 100km/h acceleration time of under 3.5 seconds is possible.

McLaren will build 1,000 units of the MP4-12C annually at a new factory at the same site the group builds its F1 cars. The factory is expected to have an initial peak capacity of 4,000 cars a year, four times more than the planned production for the new McLaren when it is launched in 2011 with a price tag of between US$200k to US$290k, higher than its Ferrari or Lamborghini rivals.

McLaren MP4-12c

What we know right now is that the MP4-12C’s chassis is constructed from a carbon fiber composite tub constructed in a single piece. They call this the Carbon MonoCell. Body panels are also carbon fiber. For McLaren, the MP4-12C is supposed to be value for money. Now how can this be at these prices?

Here’s why. When it comes to fast cars, there are a few ‘segments’. The McLaren F1 is priced in the ‘core’ segment which includes cars like the 458 Italia, the Gallardo, 911 Turbo, DB9, etc. There are higher segments where cars like the 612 Scaglietti sit, or the ‘ultimate’ group where you get cars like the McLaren SLR, McLaren F1, the Veyron, Paganis and Koenigseggs. McLaren says they are bringing technology from the ‘ultimate’ group into this new ‘core’ product.

McLaren MP4-12c

In the engine bay (mid-mounted) sits a new engine called the McLaren M838T which McLaren says it developed in-house – a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 mated to a 7-speed twin clutch system making 600 horsepower and 587Nm of torque (80% said to be available from 2,000rpm). The V8 uses a flat-plane crank so it’ll sound more shrieky Ferrari V8 and less burbly American V8. Its redline is pegged at 8,500 – forced induction and high revving in one engine!

Look after the jump for more pix of the new McLaren.
[Read more...]

58 Comments